Flexibility and mobility: exhibit-E’s ipad app

by leslierankowfinearts

THE ADVENT OF ONLINE VIDEO HAS OPENED UP ENORMOUS OPPORTUNITIES TO REACH A WIDER GLOBAL AUDIENCE. COLLECTORS, GALLERIES, DEALERS AND VIDEO PRODUCERS CAN FEATURE THEIR OWN VIDEO COLLECTIONS ONLINE OR USE THE PHENOMENON OF VIDEO-SHARING SITES TO SUPPORT AND PROMOTE THEIR WORK. NOW IS THE TIME FOR THE ART WORLD, NOT ONLY GALLERIES, ADVISORS AND COLLECTORS BUT ALSO MUSEUM AND NON-PROFIT INSTITUTIONS TO DECIDE WHAT ROLE VIDEO AND APPS WILL PLAY IN THEIR WEBSITES.

IN THE COMPREHENSIVE AND IMMINENTLY READABLE PUBLICATION, THE ART WORLD AND THE WORLD WIDE WEB, exhibit-E, THE DESIGN FIRM FOR THE ART WORLD, DETAILS THE EXPLOSIVE GROWTH IN POPULARITY OF YouTube, VIMEO, AND OTHER SITES THAT HAVE MADE WEB VIDEO VIRTUALLY UBIQUITOUS. http://www.exhibit-e.com/

FOR YOUR OWN COPY OF THIS 212-PAGE INVALUABLE GUIDE TO ART WORLD MARKETING AND COMMUNICATION, ORDER A COPY AT

WITH ART FAIRS, UNIQUE PRIVATE COLLECTIONS, ARTISTS AND CLIENTS POPULATING EVERY CORNER OF THE WORLD, THE DEMANDS OF PROVIDING ELEGANTLY ORGANIZED AND DETAILED VISUAL AND TEXTUAL INFORMATION HAVE REACHED LEVELS OF NEW AESTHETIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL SOPHISTICATION. MOBILE USERS HAVE COME TO EXPECT EASE OF USE WHEN ACCESSING INFORMATION ON THE GO. IT IS CRUCIAL THAT THEY DON’T JUST HAPPEN TO STUMBLE UPON YOUR WEBSITE BUT ARE FAMILIAR WITH YOU, YOUR BUSINESS IDENTITY AND POINT OF VIEW. A WEBSITE MUST SERVE ALL KINDS OF DEVICES, SMARTPHONES, LAPTOPS, TABLETS AS WELL AS DESKTOP COMPUTERS. exhibit-E HAS ADDRESSED AND CONTINUES TO BE A LEADER IN OPTIMIZING WEB CONTENT FOR SUCH A WIDE VARIETY OF USER INTERFACES.

TODAY’S LRFA BLOG IS PLEASED TO CONTINUE ITS DIALOGUE WITH DAN MILLER, FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL OF exhibit-E AND SENIOR DESIGNER, BILLY MAKER, ON THE RECENTLY LAUNCHED galleryManager THAT PROVIDES NOT ONLY EXCELLENT DESIGN AS WELL AS SIMPLE AND QUICK NAVIGATION FOR EACH AND EVERY TYPE OF USER.

What about the mobility? Anyone who has switched to using something like webmail loves the ability to check their email anywhere. Right. You can do it anywhere. You’re not locked to one computer. If you’re at an art fair, if you are at Art Basel Miami and you want to show a selection of inventory to a client down there that you haven’t thought to bring photos of, you just log right in from your iPad or computer and everything is right there. Or if you want to present a curated selection of inventory from galleryManager you can do that from your iPad or any other tablet or computer. Using the galleryManager iPad app you can view your selections of work online or offline. That feature doesn’t cost anything extra. It’s just part of any galleryManager account! All the information that’s associated with an indi- vidual piece of work, or artist, all the information about past clients you’ve worked with, the location of a work, the provenance. Or if you’re a gallery owner and your assistants are away for the day or on vacation and you need them to upload something, they can just hop right on and change it for you. It’s really like a one-stop shop for everything related to running a gallery.

In terms of flexibility and mobility, this does sound like an extension of what you’ve already been able to do with exhibit-E.
Exactly. It is just one more piece of functionality of the websites that we provide for the galleries. It fits in seamlessly, and it’s one less thing that the galleries have to worry about.

Do you think the galleries are worried about that information being exposed, that information being hacked?
We think that there’s probably a perception that stuff is exposed. But in reality, well, two points here. One, it’s in the cloud, which offers a much greater level of security, plus we’re doing daily granular backups, and we can roll back any account 14 days. But two, by having this information on our Web servers, we’re adding an extra layer of protection and reliabil- ity that some galleries just might not think of. A computer in

a gallery might not be as up to date on all the right patches and virus protection. We take all of those headaches out of the equation. It’s more secure than if you were on one of these programs in the gallery, especially when considering the devas- tation caused by Hurricane Sandy. Our galleryManager clients had access to their inventory throughout the crisis.

What do you think is next? What are the major things where you can say, “Well, let’s do this next”?
One thing that we heard repeatedly from a number of our clients is that galleries needed an offline solution—a quick and easy way to present inventory, on the road, and offline because wi-fi at art fairs can be spotty at best. For galleries every second matters when presenting work. This is why we developed an iPad app for galleryManager. Our solution was simple, we are giving galleryManager users a way to select groups of artworks and information and send them directly to their iPad—no exporting or uploading files or jpegs—it’s automatically in sync with their galleryManager account. This is a much more fluid solution than anything that is currently offered, and the cost of those other systems is high—as much as $100 per month with a per iPad fee. We are offering it free with every galleryManager account. It just makes sense to us. You shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get content onto your iPad. The iPad should be a natural extension of the gallery inventory management system and not some add on.

What we’re going to do is keep listening to our clients and respond to their needs and demands as new things come up. The art world moves so fast, and there are so many new tools for communicating and exchanging information these days that we have to stay in sync with how the galleries themselves are doing business. More specifically, we’re going to keep adding new features and capabilities to our products, improving and developing what we have already started. Technology moves fast. There will be a lot of opportunities to continue to innovate features and just keep getting better.

WITH TWELVE LOCATIONS, GAGOSIAN GALLERY IS UNIQUE AMONGST ITS PEERS IN TERMS OF SCALE, HISTORY AND COMPLEXITY. NEXT WEEK, THE LRFA BLOG WILL GET DOWN TO SPECIFICS IN exhibit-E’S CASE STUDY ON THE GALLERY AND ITS TRANSLATION OF ITS VAST GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE AND DEPTH OF CONTENT AND ARCHIVES TO THE WEB.

I APPRECIATE ALL THOSE WHO SUBSCRIBE, COMMENT AND ENDORSE THE LRFA BLOG. I AM PARTICULARLY GRATEFUL TO THE EXPERTS IN THE ART WORLD WHO CONTRIBUTE THEIR TIME AND EXPERTISE TO THE BLOG! IT WOULDN’T EXIST WITHOUT YOU.